[The Back 40] -- The first-ever Farm Aid concert made history on Sunday, September 22, 1985. That was 40 years ago. Since then, the nonprofit organization has put in Nearly 40 Years of Action for Family Farmers. And there will be a new concert, Farm Aid 40, on September 20, 2025, to continue the work and celebrate the past 40 years. In fact, you can watch a livestream of the anniversary concert on YouTube starting at 3:15pm CST here.
Amazing that it is still rolling, 40 years on.
Back in September of 1985, Willie Nelson and friends took inspiration from Live Aid and organized Farm Aid as a music festival to raise money specifically for American farmers. According to the website, the organization's mission "is to build a vibrant, family farm-centered system of agriculture in America." It's likely they thought that one concert – held at Memorial Stadium, University of Illinois, in Champaign, Illinois – would suffice. It did not. And, so, Farm Aid continues its efforts and holds an annual festival (don't forget to check out the Farm Aid 40 Livestream).
But what about that first concert, huh?
Well, that one featured just over 60 artists, according to the Concert Archives website. There are plenty of playlists and separate videos of the various Farm Aid sets. The embedded video below is supposed to be the full concert, and it is over 4 hours long. And cross-referencing the performances against set lists of available DVDs (like this one), seem to match up. So, if you want to revisit a huge concert featuring acts like Bon Jovi, X, Bob Dylan, Alabama, Brian Setzer, Joni Mitchell, John Mellencamp, Bonnie Raitt, and more, click the play link on the following video.
And support your local farmers!
Flashback: Farm Aid - September 22, 1985
And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
See you in seven!
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